Posts tagged "the soapbox"

I’d been planning to let the issue of the Nice Guys of OK Cupid blog on Tumblr slide. [NOTE: The blog has since been taken down.] It is pretty depressing from every perspective. I’d squabbled and grumbled about it on Twitter with a few people, and then thankfully the Christmas break…

My son turns six next week, and among all the other wishes I have for him, I have a silent hope that won’t be shared at his birthday party. It’s one that swims in the depths of my mind, surfacing occasionally when awful things happen that force me to think about it: I wish and…

For as long as we're aware of other people's dirty bits and sexual desires, we're aware of how funny it can be to talk about them. My niece, for instance, thinks that "butt" is the funniest word in the English language. But she's six. The grown-up version of "Ha ha, butt!" are those conversations —…

Hello from out here in Man Card America, where proving your masculinity to the dude-friends who are vigilantly looking to revoke your "Man Card" if you get caught engaging in unmanly activities like being scared, doing what your girlfriend wants to do sometimes, enjoying a song by a woman, or drinking the wrong kind of…

As our entire nation follows the story of a senseless massacre in Connecticut, people are weighing in with their opinions. We don’t have all of the facts straight yet, but the media and government officials are already pointing fingers at each other, at the NRA, at violent video games, at “not allowing God in our…

"We’ve endured too many of these tragedies in the past few years. And each time I learn the news I react not as a President, but as anybody else would -- as a parent. And that was especially true today. I know there’s not a parent in America who doesn’t feel the same overwhelming grief…

There are many conversations to be had about the tragic death of Jacintha Saldanha, the King Edward VII nurse who took her own life last week, after she learned the "Queen" and "Prince Charles" that she patched through to Kate Middleton's private ward were actually Australian radio DJs with the show…

Almost a year ago, I wrote an essay about having been date raped in college. The piece got a strong reaction from commenters, many of whom debated whether or not I had given or not given consent for this guy to have sex with me. Much of the back-and-forth centered around the fact…

On December 1st, the sports world was in shock as reports came in that Jovan Belcher, a linebacker for the Kansas City Chiefs, died in a murder-suicide, killing himself at the Chiefs training facility after murdering the mother of his three-month-old child in their home. Most people tried to figure out what would…

This piece was cross-posted with permission from FatNutritionist.com. It was originally published before Thanksgiving but we are crossposting it here with the rest of the holiday season in mind. It’s true, Thanksgiving is a weirdly imperialist semi-genocidal sort of holiday, but hey, at least we can enjoy the tradition of getting together with…

Jen Kirkman is a comedian on "Chelsea Lately" and "After Lately." This post was reprinted with permission from her Tumblr. I’m on a Twitter strike. I am so sick of the way men on Twitter treat lady comics. And my male friends always DM me or text me or email me or talk…

First thing's first: I'm a Jew. I haven't celebrated Christmas since I was a little kid and we still believed in Santa Claus. (I was eight when I discovered he wasn't real, and ceremoniously told my younger brother and sister at the dinner table. My mom got so mad she squeezed ketchup all over my…

I would truly love to be able to submit this piece with my name attached. However, as a young woman in modern Ireland, I feel it’s not possible due to the stigma and negativity attached to the subject matter. A few weeks ago, 31-year-old Savita Halappanavar, an Indian dentist that had settled in Ireland with…

Years ago, I had a conversation with a group of my close male friends and the age old question came up: Can men and women really be just friends? My boy Otto said, "No way! Guys always want to sleep with their female friends." My friend Steve interjected, "Of course! I have a platonic female…

Originally appeared on Role/Reboot. Republished here with permission. It’s over. For a while, I managed to hold it together. There was pie to eat and wine to drink and a couch to sink gratefully into. There were friends to laugh with and sigh with, dishes to clean up, and an 8am meeting o…

"Modern Family" is one of the few shows on TV right now that makes me genuinely laugh out loud every episode. I adore all of the characters, their weird quirks, and increasingly absurd story arcs. From the beginning, if I had to choose a favorite character it would probably be Phil. A talented real estate…

This piece was originally published at Patheos.com and is being reprinted with permission. The spring of my sophomore year of college I was president of my university’s Students for Life chapter. The fall of my junior year of college I cut my ties with the pro-life movement. Five years later I have lost…

I have very mixed feelings about a piece on NYMag.com's blog about "hipster sexism." The authors Alissa Quart and Lauren Sandler author Alissa Quart described "hipster sexism" as: Hipster Sexism consists of the objectification of women but in a manner that uses mockery, quotation marks, and paradox ... ads, photographs, television shows, films, and T-shirts,…

"Disney is releasing a Latina princess soon, mija," I declared to my daughter as we drove away from her school and on our way to pick up her dad. "Good!" she said firmly. But of course, I rarely let that be the end of any conversation. "Why good?" I probed. What followed was a discussio…

I’m a TV junkie. Once my kid finally falls asleep, you’ll find me splayed out on the couch, flipping through the over 800 channels we apparently subscribe to. And my tastes run rampant: I’m just as happy sitting through an hour of "Alphas" on the Syfy channel as I am watching Barry’s antics on "Storage…

Taking a page out of those girls you went to high school with who can't stop smugly posting every detail of their perfect lives on Facebook, Lady Gaga shaded America's youngest grandma Taylor Swift just perfectly on Twitter yesterday. It all started when Jaime King's unborn child's godmother tweeted about Gaga, using the preferred…